There's a growing backlog of Nintendo products currently available only in Japan, and as the universe's most authoritative for all Nintendo information, RFN is obligated to act. To get all the details on: Miitomo, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final we recruited friend of the show Syrenne McNulty, who lives and breathes these kinds of very Japanese experiences. Gui continues to try to love Breath of Fire, taking a chance with Breath of Fire II for the GBA. Does the double experience help? No, but apparently he hates video games now anyway. Greg tries his hand at the demo for Pokkén Tournament and finishes up with Twilight Princess HD. The rest of the team feigns interest, still worn out having talked about the game last year. Jon cautioned that giving his thoughts on the Halo World Championship would turn into a "15-minute philosophical discussion," and despite James' insistence that he would keep it under control, Jon's predictions were on point. James, in a sacrifice for the show, passed on his New Business this week, not because he couldn't remember the terrible name of Wii U eShop title 6180 the moon.

After the break, we decided to chat about rumors, hoaxes, and the desire to believe - in light of the recent NX controller hoaxes. At the time of recording, the second hoax had not been revealed as a 3D-printed model, but the first had been confirmed as CG. We start on point, but at some point segway into largely unrelated territory - a trek befitting Radio Free Nintendo.

No Listener Mail this week, but that's what makes our show go. Fuel up our production with your emails.

This episode was edited by Guillaume Veillette. The "Men of Leisure" theme song was produced exclusively for Radio Free Nintendo by Perry Burkum. Hear more at Bluffs Custom Music.

This episode's ending music is Save Haven from Resident Evil Remake. The game was composed by Shusaku Uchiyama, Makoto Tomozawa, Misao Senbongi. All rights reserved by Capcom.

Talkback

So hyped for Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE and Shin Megami Tensei 4 Final. I'm certain the latter will come to the west due to the fact they are bringing over 7th Dragon III: Code VFD, perhaps one of the craiziest game titles out there bested only by Super Mario Advance 4 - Super Mario Bros 3, if a game such as this has can find it's way to the West I think it's inevitable we'll hear about Final soon enough.

I kind of feel that maybe they overhyped the difficulty for SMT4 Final. It is quite common to find japanese gamers tolerance for any kind of difficulty low, as they even complained about how Monster Hunter 4 was difficult when it is probably the most accessible in the series to date.

That isn't to say SMT4 isn't hard at all, but I feel like it is a bit much to compare it to lunatic no die mode of Fire Emblem.

There doesn't seem to be any chapter art for this episode. On my file, it just shows the RFN logo and never changes. Is that the case for anyone else? Was Gui's dark night of the soul so dark that no pic could adequately convey its magnitude, therefore no chapter art? Perfectly understandable, if so! Though a pic for Jon's section would have been good. ;)

Syrenne's comments on Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE has gotten me so excited for the game. Given the horror stories you get rumblings of the awful shit that happens in the Japanese and Korean pop industries, I am happy to hear that TMS#FE will at least poke at it

Stellar podcast; such excellent fortune to have Syrenne join the talk for rumor and speculation discussion.

Wow! Thank you so much for the scoop on those two RPGs, Syrenne! I won't lie, I entered into SMT with IV myself, but Final sounds amazing and ridiculously brutal. Also glad to hear that TMS is a wholly different experience and much darker than we were initially led to believe. I can't wait to get my hands on it, and (hopefully) Final, too.

Also great discussion on the recent rumors. I have found myself quite pessimistic towards Nintendo lately and I let that get to me with how terrible the fake controller looked. With only a few months to go before all is revealed, I can't help but get quite antsy about the subject. Although I have stated my love for the Wii U multiple times, I am really wondering if I can see myself buying another Nintendo console and they're going to have to work hard to prove that to me.

Also, I think Nintendo has at least one or two more years of relevance at Evo, especially when Pokken will likely feature some form of DLC that can change its meta-game and keep it fresh until Evo 2017. However, Bayonetta has thrown a wrench into the Smash 4 meta that has been very awkward, and I am not sure I can see the game surviving at Evo for much longer.

I kind of feel that maybe they overhyped the difficulty for SMT4 Final. It is quite common to find japanese gamers tolerance for any kind of difficulty low, as they even complained about how Monster Hunter 4 was difficult when it is probably the most accessible in the series to date.

That isn't to say SMT4 isn't hard at all, but I feel like it is a bit much to compare it to lunatic no die mode of Fire Emblem.

I would agree, lunatic Fire Emblem usually encourages defensive play, turtling and if you are able grinding. Whereas in SMT you must play aggressively and be proactive with fusion, there is no fail state and you are free to keep trying as everything needed to win is available to you, and you just need to find it or fuse it. In Fire Emblem levels are the most important factor in the outcome of a battle and you can easily screw yourself early on by using your "Jagen" type character too much.

The pessimist in me just thinks Western Devs don't have/don't want Dev kits. And the few ones that do are pretty loyal to Nintendo. I mean, look at how quickly the PS4K stuff started coming out. There seems to be little impetus to talk about NX because the interest isn't there. Or devs could be unimpressed.

@Evan_B - What is the Bayonetta issue with Smash 4 and EVO? I did a quick google but couldn't find much. Interested to know. Cheers.

Well, she demands nerfing, especially with the recent nerfs of other characters that place her in a league of her own. Bayonetta is essentially a "low-risk, extremely high-reward" character that alters any physically-oriented character's play style drastically. Her punish game is insane, allowing her to KO opponents off of the top of the screen at ridiculously low percentages, and then there is Witch Time, which is even more punishing than a counter because of its simultaneous kill-and-combo setups. There have been people denouncing the inclusion of the character because players of relatively low skill can pick up the character and, upon learning her fundamentals (which are inherently different from the rest of the Smash 4 cast) can outplay other characters. On the other hand, there are characters that require genuine skill in order to perform well, that are ranked high because of people's ability to utilize them.

Bayonetta has created a situation where people don't enjoy playing the game because of how often they'll encounter her, as it requires a great deal of effort to get a leg up on her, but she can punish with little effort. So it's created a bit of a rampant discourse that hasn't been fun for anyone. If Nintendo or Bamco manage to patch the game properly, they can definitely balance out this issue, but recently they have nerfed good characters outside of Bayonetta and kept her relatively the same, which is hurting the "metagame", so to speak.

Fun episode, and enjoyed the discussion over rumors. Syrenne provides a neat perspective as someone who works in the game industry.

That said, while I don't have experience in video game business, I do have a lot of experience in supplier relationships who manufacture product not just for my company, but other large OEMs. I forget who said it, but I recall hearing someone say that "Sony & Microsoft know what the NX is", seemingly implying that the developers with the NX dev kits would have possibly spilled the beans with them on what is all in the dev kit.

With the suppliers I work with, anything that isn't publicly launched yet is protected under a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), a legally binding contract that essentially states nothing in the works between the two parties are to be shared with any outside party prior to it being to market. If our supplier broke that agreement and it could be traced back to them, my company wouldn't hesitate to pursue legal action with our supplier.

I understand my field is different from the video game industry, but I struggle to think that game developers would be so fast & loose with Nintendo's direct competitors with this kind of information, if not for the concerns of potential legal action, then because of the ethical ramifications of doing so. Hell, one of our suppliers has each of their production lines walled off between the customers they serve because of how important this is.

It's a surprisingly small industry. Just because they have a good idea doesn't mean it was because someone sat down in their office and said "Oy! Here's an NX kit." More likely little pieces of information that get brought up casually. All three platform holders deal with the same people, overtime this stuff gets spread around.

Think back to just last week with the PS4.5 stories. People were overheard discussing it casually IN LINE at GDC. The reality is people talk when they're with friends, and people who work at the platform holders have friends in the development space.

I can tell you the industry I work in, we know pretty well when our competition is planning something and presumably they us. We deal with the same suppliers, and we have to tell them our plans so they can prepare. The only time we get truly caught off guard is when we're dealing with a truly new player and they just don't have established contacts.

I really enjoyed the discussion of fakes, rumors, and hype. It's probably all about to enter a new phase, with Nintendo's fiscal year ending in a few days and their forecasts for the next one due in mid-April. Seems like they will have to reveal some basic on NX at that time to justify including it in their revenue forecasts, which would be horrible otherwise due to declining interest in Wii U and 3DS.

One thing I kept thinking about during that whole segment -- where are the NX fan sites? Is that really a bygone era?

The comparison with Soul Hackers killed my enthusiasm for the game, but we'll see. If playing on Easy difficulty allows the game to be "still tough but fair" while eliminating the need to create spreadsheets for dialogue options with the hundreds of demons in the game, then maybe.

But then again, I might just go and finally actually play the RPGs in my backlog, which includes Nocturne.

It's a surprisingly small industry. Just because they have a good idea doesn't mean it was because someone sat down in their office and said "Oy! Here's an NX kit." More likely little pieces of information that get brought up casually. All three platform holders deal with the same people, overtime this stuff gets spread around.

Think back to just last week with the PS4.5 stories. People were overheard discussing it casually IN LINE at GDC. The reality is people talk when they're with friends, and people who work at the platform holders have friends in the development space.

I can tell you the industry I work in, we know pretty well when our competition is planning something and presumably they us. We deal with the same suppliers, and we have to tell them our plans so they can prepare. The only time we get truly caught off guard is when we're dealing with a truly new player and they just don't have established contacts.

Just a case of different worlds, I guess. I also work in a fairly conservative producer in my field as well, so I guess I shouldn't be as surprised when other companies or industry as much more loose lipped.

Pretty new listener here. Just wondering, did anyone happen to catch whether Syrenne mentioned anything about the GamePad use in Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE? I mean, I'll probably get it anyway since there's a drought of RPGs on the system, but would be cool if it did anything unusual with the GamePad. :)